In the field of microwave component design, a network analyzer is typically used to quantify the RF performance of a device. These performance measurements require a calibrated reference plane at the interface between the device under test and the test system to minimize errors introduced into the measurement by the test system. The reference plane is defined at the connection of the port(s) of the measurement system to the port(s) of the device under test. Furthermore, the ports of the test system include a transition (or adapter) to the transmission line utilized by the device under test.
An aspect of this invention is a precision calibration standard kit of components that will mate to a particular type of transmission media, slot transmission line, also known as "slotline" or "slotted line". Previous techniques for slotline measurements include calibration with coaxial or probe-coupled transition standards, which do not establish an accurate reference plane and provide no correction to translational errors. In addition, these previous techniques permit radiation losses in the slot adapters and probe-coupled transition, and interact with the slot transmission line, thereby producing errors that are not eliminated by the calibration standards.
The calibration standards and calibration techniques typically utilized during microwave measurements limit the network analyzer measurement accuracy.
It would therefore represent an advance in the art to provide a technique for establishing an accurate calibration for slotline measurements.